(a) Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to an apparatus and method for providing real-time multimedia content. More specifically the invention provides an apparatus and method for discovering and extracting desired data from multimedia data streams via a communication network and data interface terminal.
(b) Discussion
As the Internet matures, the number of sites offering real-time streaming data continues to increase. The widespread availability of high-speed Internet connections has made Internet-based streaming data a viable reality. The Internet, with its low entry barriers has allowed virtually any individual or business to post streaming data on the Internet. While streaming data offers many advantages over static data, it suffers from a significant disadvantage. Streaming data is necessarily linear in the time domain, meaning that a user must monitor the data until a segment of interest commences. As the number of sites carrying streaming data increases, so does the need for a system that can selectively extract desired data. Existing search engines rely on metadata, which is often provided by the content provider. Such metadata can be inaccurate and outdated or misleading. Further, even accurate and timely metadata can result in a very broad categorization. For instance a user may be interested in a specific college basketball game. The user may select a provider catering to sports fans but only spending a few minutes each hour on college basketball.
Conventional video and audio broadcasting sources, for instance, all news, all-sports, all-weather stations would like to reach a wide range of users and consequently are compelled to broadcast material that appeals to the broadest cross-section of users, this results in virtually all users spending time monitoring data that is of little or no interest to them.
Therefore there is a need for a system that would allow users to discover and receive relevant data from streaming sources. Ideally such a system would be able to search for relevant data by matching users' requests to available video and audio streams.